The rifle has always worked perfectly until I disassembled it for cleaning. After reassembling, I have the following problem: when I close the slide, and a new cartridge comes out of the magazine tube, it does not run horizontally but its bottom goes up, so it cannot be placed on the cartridge-carrier horizontally. This seems to be caused by the magazine gate catch, which pushes the round upward while it exits the magazine. The result is that the rifle jams as I try to close the slide. Can you help me finding the assembly schematic? (may be I reassebled some part in the wrong way). Thank You!

James K

March 5, 2005, 08:42 PM

Holy mackerel! I assume this is one of the repros, as I can't imagine anyone shooting an original. Anyway, I think you can install the gate latch spring upside down and it could be the problem if that was done. Just a WAG, though.

Jim

Mike Irwin

March 7, 2005, 03:18 PM

A friend of mine has several Lightning rifles that he fires often.

I've fired them a bit, myself.

I'd love to have one, but spendy...

art greenberg

March 18, 2005, 04:54 PM

Hello, I would love to shoot my 38-55 Lightning...anyone have any ammo laying around ? The gun is about 85 to 89% and I would consider selling......

Mike Irwin

March 19, 2005, 10:22 AM

I still see .38-55 fairly regularly at gun shows, Art.

But, you're not looking for .38-55 ammo, the Lightning rifle was never chambered for that round.

You're looking for .38-56, which is a shorter, bottlenecked round based on the .45-70 case necked down, and which can be quite a bit harder to find.

I've never seen a box of this at a gunshow that hasn't been very expensive -- collector ammo.

However, someone posted links for finding obsolete ammo in another thread in this forum in the last couple of days.

art greenberg

March 19, 2005, 01:16 PM

Thank You I stand corrected...38-56 is the correct round...the gun is still for sale.